If You Kick Them, Do They Not They Bleed Pixels?

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They Bleed Pixels is in the Steam Halloween Sale, which we’ve already drawn your glowing Jack o’ Lantern eyes too, but since we didn’t have a great deal to say about the platformer at release, I thought I’d write a few words about its macabre delights here. Despite featuring fiendish platforming and blood-stained levels, it all plays out more like N fused with a beat ’em up than Super Meat Boy. I’ve only played a few levels and haven’t seen the new Halloween content, but it’s discounted to £2.37 until November 1st and if you’re craving a devilishly difficult game in which spikes are actually your friends, do consider these dripping pixels. Trailer below.

When I say spikes are your friends, do take note that they will still kill you if you attempt to hug them. That’s just the way spikes are. Unlike the pointy bastards in VVVVVV, these spikes won’t just kill you though – they will kill everything else as well. Kick, punch and lob enemies into them and then show your gratitude from a distance, perhaps by nodding nonchalantly or sending a ‘thankyou’ card in the post.

The Samhain summoning circle has also caused Condemned to materialise on Steam. It’s one of the grimiest, nastiest games I’ve ever played and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Nonetheless, it should probably cost 14p now given how quickly games seem to depreciate in value. The link back there goes to Condemned 2’s official site because the original game doesn’t appear to have one anymore. I prefer the first game though, even if it doesn’t have the angriest bear in it.

I picked up they bleed pixels, and it really is a great wee game. My one complaint would be that I’m having trouble with the kick/punch controls being on the same button, which leads to some frustration.

I’ve found the movement controls in They Bleed Pixels to be too unprecise to really enjoy the game. Some of deaths just didn’t felt like they were my fault.
This and the combat controls are also too wonky as well.

A shame though as I really liked the theme, the aesthetics and the soundtrack, but the game itself was just too frustrating.

I don’t know what it says about me or Steam or the industry in general, but Condemned being nearly £5 has put me off trying it. 10 years ago, if something was £5 (and £5 then was more like £8) I wouldn’t have thought twice.

Has Steam totally devalued games? I like sales and promotions, but hearing people like Edmund McMillen talk about how he expects bad things in the future due to all the bundles and stuff has made me think twice about the long term health of the industry and the ability for indie developers to support themselves when we’ve been trained to believe games are virtually worthless.

As for me, it depends on how much I can afford in a month. This month, I could barely afford $5 plus a bit left over in my Steam Wallet for this sale. On the positive side, I already owned half of the games on sale anyway and had obtained most of the Indie ones at full price, some at launch.

I’m not getting Condemned at any price though. I have a limit to the amount of “griminess” I’m willing to put up with. (EDIT: Oh wait, maybe I will. I was mixing up Condemned with Manhunt. Manhunt is the one I’m definitely not getting if they port it.)

True, but in the highly informal setting of some of my gamer friends the vast majority purchased Borderlands 2 when it was released while a much smaller subset of us are waiting for the GOTY edition to go on sale on Steam. The same has been true for ACIII, Torchlight II, and Darksiders II. A moderate number purchased Sleeping Dogs recently because it was around $20 while I personally, being unemployed poor, will be waiting until it’s dropped even more.

What this shows to me is that much like Valve have said before people will buy games on sale, but they’ll also line up to buy many games at release. Even those that don’t have multiplayer where some might fear falling behind the popular wave. A lot of the cheap purchases on Steam are from players who either are particularly value-minded and who would have waited or found a sale of some sort to begin with or are opportunity sales made to a user who might not have bought it at all otherwise.

Not to mention that everyone has stated that selling greater volume at a much lower price has generally brought in more money to the developers.

I thought the bear in Condemned 2 was irritating, since there was only one correct route, and I completely missed having to push something across a doorway at the end of the fight, hence tons of restarts and repetitions that completely killed the mood. It was one of the few games I got for my Xbox, because I wanted to see how the Condemned story continued. I definitely preferred Condemned 1 on PC, and have completed it a few times. I consider it survival horror.

This may not be THAT much like Super Meat Boy, but I enjoy it for the same reasons I enjoyed Super Meat Boy, though certainly not as much (mostly because Super Meat Boy is the pinnacle of hardcore platforming.)